Dental hygiene is a mainstay and a strong indicator of overall health. Thus, the daily maintenance of healthy teeth and gums is important. However, the loss or compromise of the health of the teeth and/or gums remains a problem to this day, despite the extraordinary advances in the dental and medical technologies. Since the human body does not grow new teeth upon loss, the usage of false or artificial teeth is quite common.
Dental implants have become widespread in dentistry. Implants are being used on edentulous patients (those missing all of their teeth) to help secure full dentures, as well as partial dentures, implants, bridges, restorations, etc. Implant-supported dentures eliminate slipping and movement so the patient has increased comfort and confidence while eating and speaking. The retention of dentures relies on surface tensions and such forces, caused by the close approximation of dental surfaces to the gum surfaces, i.e., the better the topographical fit of the artificial to the natural surfaces, the better the holding or suction properties of the denture or dental appliance, generating a good appliance to mimic the chewing, biting and other large mouth forces at play. As such, it generally takes significant forces to overcome these holding forces and remove the appliance. Furthermore, the holding forces can be augmented by adhesives and structures, such as wires to further grip the appliance and secure it to the mouth.
Because of the increased retention of implant-supported dentures, elderly patients who have weakness in their hands have difficulty removing these dentures or appliances. Dentists instruct their patients as to the proper placement of fingers to remove these devices, e.g., to place their fingers on the edge of the dentures and push until the denture becomes unseated, thereby overcoming the surface tensions and other forces. With elderly and other patients having cognitive difficulties, however, they are often unable to handle these procedures, despite repeated training. In addition, caregivers for the elderly and other patients also can have difficulty removing these dentures or appliances.
Of course, with people living longer and, as noted, with longevity correlated to dental health, there is a growing need for a device and/or technique to ameliorate this problem, giving individuals and caregivers a means to safely and easily remove dental appliances, such as dentures.
There is, therefore, a present need to provide a device or prosthesis to improve existing procedures and make dental prosthesis removal more efficient.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a needed tool for dental professionals to employ to remove prostheses from the mouths of patients, and for patients to remove the prosthesis themselves.